Survey Of German Tactics 1918

By Staff U.S. Army

The First World War is often represented as a stolid slugging match of opposing trench lines being pounded by massed artillery, however, the German offensives of 1918 broke through the British lines with great and dramatic success. The German High command could not hope to match the Allies for manpower which had allowed them to ruthlessly push forward at the Somme and Passchendaele or compete with the new weapon of the war - the Tank. The German generals strained every resource and innovated their tactics to break through the trench lines; the solutions are still in use today as the keys to battle success; infiltration, operational secrecy, intense but short hurricane bombardments, dedicated elite stormtroops, concentration of effort, air supremacy. The American Staff were determined to learn from their opponent’s success and documented all of the tactics that had worked so well; they produced a formidable treatise of tactics and strategic insight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verdun Press
• Release date: Aug 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781782895664

Staff U.S. Army

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Text originally published in 1918 under the same title.

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

A SURVEY OF GERMAN TACTICS, 1918.

Prepared by

HISTORICAL SUB-SECTION, GENERAL STAFF, A. E. F.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 2

FOREWORD 3

PART I. — A SURVEY OF GERMAN TACTICS DURING THE CAMPAIGN OF 1918. 4

PART II—INFANTRY. 8

I. TRAINING. 8

2. PREPARATION FOR ATTACK. 9

3. THE ATTACK. 10

4. THE BATTLE IN THE INTERMEDIATE ZONE. 13

5. STABILIZATION. 15

6. MACHINE GUNS. 16

7. SPECIAL SERVICES AND SUPPLY. 20

8. LIAISON. 22

9. ARMAMENT. 23

10. OCCUPATION OF THE SECTOR. 24

11. COUNTER ATTACKS. 27

12. RAIDS. 27

13. DEFENSE AGAINST AIRCRAFT, TANKS AND GAS. 28

14. RETREAT. 30

PART III—ARTILLERY. 32

1. PREPARATION. 32

2. EMPLOYMENT OF PROJECTILES IN THE OFFENSIVE. 33

3. BARRAGES IN THE OFFENSIVE. 34

4. MOBILE ARTILLERY IN THE ATTACK. 35

5. RAIDS. 36

7. ANTI-TANK DEFENSE. 38

8. PROTECTION AGAINST COUNTER-BATTERY FIRE. 39

9. ARTILLERY AND AVIATION. 39

10. TRENCH MORTARS. 40

PART IV—AVIATION. 42

PART V—SOME LUDENDORFF DICTA. 45

FOREWORD

WAR DEPARTMENT

DOCUMENT No. 883

Office of The Adjutant General.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

WASHINGTON, December 17, 1918. The following pamphlet, A survey of German tactics, 1918, is published for the information of all concerned.

BY ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR:

PEYTON C. MARCH,

General, Chief of Staff.

OFFICIAL:

P. C. HARRIS,

PART I. — A SURVEY OF GERMAN TACTICS DURING THE CAMPAIGN OF 1918.

A survey of German tactics during 1918 is facilitated by the dramatic change that came over the situation on the 18th of July. Up to that date we are concerned with offensive tactics, after that date only with defensive. The subject thus naturally divides in two.

At the head of the German army, is the spring campaign opened, was Field Marshal von Hindenburg, an exponent of offensive tactics who had, until then, and quite recently in the attack on Riga, met with remarkable successes. In the early phases of the war and on the Eastern front Hindenburg had more or less practiced von Schlieffen's Cannae theory, the refusal of the center and double envelopment of the wings. With the immense frontal developments, of the later stages of the war, this tactical scheme became less and less workable and the tendency became rather to search out and exploit a weak point in the opponent's line. By making a sufficient effort to break through, at such a point, envelopment could then again be practiced, though in this case from the center outwardly to the wings. The adjustment of the armies on the Western front so clearly precluded the possibility of envelopment without the previous break through that it may be assumed that this method was firmly fixed in the German Field Marshal's mind when the spring campaign opened.

It is now a well-known fact that the Allies created such a weak point in their line, as Hindenburg would naturally seek for, to the south of the Somme, in the early part of the year. Not only did this open the opportunity for breaking through, but it did so at a point where the prospective strategic results for the Germans were possibly greater than at any other, point of the front. What followed is well known, a successful break through, two or three days of immense advantages, reaped through a lateral envelopment, turning both north and south, but eventual stabilization of the lines before the German command could turn their great success to decisive profit.

In the lesser offensives that followed, down to that of the 27th of May on the. Aisne, the same fundamental idea was at work, but these were less skillfully conducted and the resistance was stronger, save in the last case. On the Aisne, the German success in breaking through a most dangerously weakened part of the Allied line was even greater than in March, that is to say, the advance was more rapid and the penetration, relatively to the front deeper. But, on the other hand, the setting up of a lateral envelopment, either eastwards towards Epernay-Chalons-Verdun, or westwards towards Meaux-Paris, did not materialize.

Even after the Allied resistance had been, to a large extent, shattered, the German command showed little ability to free itself from an over-methodical estimate of the situation and to make really bold and military decisions. What with this and the geometrically increasing difficulty of supply, as penetration was affected, the large successes won were not adequately exploited in the direction of decisive success.

In the partial successes of these German offensive movements, which we have noted, no factor played a more important part than surprise. Military theorists have always agreed on the supreme importance of surprise and the experience of the present war wholly confirms this view. But the present day conditions of surprise represent an extremely delicate and complex adjustment when we compare them with those of previous wars. The fog that enveloped armies in the past has largely disappeared, that is, if not in the obvious sense, in the practical sense that the opponent can be pretty closely located on the map, while the stricter and increasingly computable relation between troops and supply lines, together with the ever-increasing delaying power of the defensive, arising from improved materiel, both tend to make the problems more closely calculable.

Without taking the space necessary for reviewing all the elements in the case, it may be said

Reviews for Survey Of German Tactics 1918

[Richard Galli · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

could not download onto my computer, tried several times today

[Philip Viverito · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I Iiked this book as it had the basic info I needed for my research. However there could have been more diagrams as the distribution mentioned. It is possible that there were no other diagrams. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in the First World War Tactics.